Similar Ebooks

Recent decades have shown the public's support for government plummet alongside political leaders’ credibility. This downward spiral calls for an exploration of what has gone wrong. The questions, "What is government good at?" and "What is government not good at?" are critical ones - and their answers should be the basis for good public policy and public administration. In What Is Government Good At?, Donald Savoie argues that politicians and public servants are good at generating and avoiding blame, playing to a segment of the population to win the next election, embracing and defending the status quo, adding management layers and staff, keeping ministers out of trouble, responding to demands from the prime minister and his office, and managing a complex, prime minister-centred organization. Conversely, they are not as good at defining the broader public interest, providing and recognizing evidence-based policy advice, managing human and financial resources with efficiency and frugality, innovating and reforming itself, being accountable to Parliament and to citizens, dealing with non-performers, paying sufficient attention to service delivery, and implementing and evaluating the impact of policies and programs. With wide implications for representative democracy, What Is Government Good At? is a persuasive analysis of an approach to government that has opened the door to those with the resources to influence policy and decision-making while leaving average citizens on the outside looking in.

This popular textbook offers a thorough and accessible approach to Canadian Studies through comparative analyses of Canada and the United States, their histories, geographies, political systems, economies, and cultures. Students and professors alike acknowledge it as an ideal tool for understanding the close relationship between the two countries, their shared experiences, and their differing views on a range of issues.

Fully revised and updated, the second edition of Canadian Studies in the New Millennium includes new chapters on Demography and Immigration Policy, the Environment, and Civil Society and Social Policy, all written by leading scholars and educators in the field. At a time in which there is a growing mutual dependence between the US and Canada for security, trade, and investment, Canadian Studies in the New Millennium will continue to be a valuable resource for students, educators, and practitioners on both sides of the border.

In the 1950s most of Acadian society was poor, uneducated, isolated, and dominated by the Roman Catholic clergy. In the following decade two individuals, Pierre E. Trudeau and Louis J. Robichaud, pointed the way for Acadians like Savoie to make important contributions to Canada's development. Trudeau's objective was Canadian unity and he turned to Acadie to show Quebec that there was a viable French Canadian presence outside their borders. Robichaud, New Brunswick's first elected Acadian premier, had witnessed Acadian poverty first hand and made it his mission to bring New Brunswick into the modern era. Savoie shows how their efforts led to fundamental change for both Canada and New Brunswick and changed his life.

The sixth edition of Canadian Politics offers a comprehensive introduction to Canadian government and politics by a highly respected group of political scientists. For this edition, the editors have organized the book into six parts. Part I examines Canadian citizenship and political identities, while Parts II and III deal with Canadian political institutions, including Aboriginal governments, and contain new chapters on the public service and Quebec. Parts IV and V shift the focus to the political process, discussing issues pertaining to culture and values, parties and elections, media, groups, movements, gender, and diversity. The chapters on Parliament, bureaucracy, political culture, political communications, social movements, and media are new to this edition. Finally, three chapters in the last section of the book analyze components of Canadian politics that have been gaining prominence during the last decade: the effects of globalization, the shifting ground of Canadian-American relations, and the place of Canada in the changing world order. Of the 21 chapters in this edition, 9 are new and the remainder have been thoroughly revised and updated.

One of the most persistent puzzles in comparative public policy concerns the conditions under which discontinuous policy change occurs. In Remaking Policy, Carolyn Hughes Tuohy advances an ambitious new approach to understanding the relationship between political context and policy change.

Focusing on health care policy, Tuohy argues for a more nuanced conception of the dynamics of policy change, one that makes two key distinctions regarding the opportunities for change and the magnitude of such changes. Four possible strategies emerge: large-scale and fast-paced ("big bang"), large-scale and slow-paced ("blueprint"), small-scale and rapid ("mosaic"), and small-scale and gradual ("incremental"). As Tuohy demonstrates, these strategies are determined not by political and institutional conditions themselves, but by the ways in which political actors, individually and collectively, read those conditions to assess their prospects for success in the present and over time.

Drawing on interviews as well as primary and secondary accounts of ten health policy cases over seven decades (1945—2015) in the US, UK, the Netherlands, and Canada, Remaking Policy represents a major advance in understanding the scale and pace of change in health policy and beyond.

In this informative critique of contemporary leadership, renowned political scientist Donald Savoie poses and answers the crucial questions: where is power located, and who is in charge? In recent years it has become extremely difficult to pinpoint the location of political and economic power, making it complicated to determine who is to blame for political and economic catastrophes and leading to increased disenchantment with Western politicians and bureaucrats. Power considers how forces such as globalization, the new media, the changing role of the courts in parliamentary democracies, the partisanship of political parties in shaping policy, and collapsing boundaries between governments and within government departments have caused citizens to feel their countries are less democratic. Savoie argues that power is leaving institutions and organizations and going to powerful individuals in both the public and private sectors, who often push aside formal processes in order to drive change. A startling and clarifying examination of changes in modern society, Power unravels the tangled web of influences that have put the power to make important decisions in the hands of the few to show why our governing institutions are no longer effective.

"Using now available documentation and his 1970 diary, William Tetley addresses important questions about the October Crisis. In a detailed analysis of the government's decision-making process, Tetley points out what most historical interpretations ignore: all but sixty of those apprehended were soon released, not a window was broken, and the calm that descended on Quebec and Canada has lasted for thirty-six years."--Résumé de l'éditeur.

The only rival to Harrison McCain’s entrepreneurial success was his deep attachment to his Maritime roots. From McCain’s beginnings in Florenceville, New Brunswick, the early mentorship he received from K.C. Irving, to the global success of his corporate empire McCain Foods, Donald Savoie presents a compelling and candid biography of one of the most famous and down-to-earth figures in Canadian business history. Savoie, a longtime friend to McCain, describes a driven, charismatic, and energetic man who had a keen wit and a deep commitment to his business and hometown. Through unprecedented access to McCain’s papers and interviews with family members, friends, and colleagues, Savoie details the decisions that McCain made alongside his brother and business partner, Wallace McCain, from the company’s humble beginnings to its expansion in Europe, Australia, India, and China. McCain saw the potential of globalization before others did. Despite conflict between the brothers and the eventual fracture of their partnership, Savoie presents the McCains’ dedication as so immersed in the development of their company that they had little time left for second-guessing. At a time when New Brunswick struggles to reinvent itself economically, Savoie points to former government policies and programs that helped the company thrive and holds up the example of Harrison McCain with the hope of seeing Canadian success stories like this in the future.

In 1952, the Canadian government forcibly relocated three dozen Inuit from their flourishing home on the Hudson Bay to the barren, arctic landscape of Ellesmere Island, the most northerly landmass on the planet. Among this group was Josephie Flaherty, the unrecognized, half-Inuit son of filmmaker Robert Flaherty, director of Nanook of the North. In a narrative rich with human drama, Melanie McGrath follows three generations of the Flaherty family—Robert, Josephie, and Josephie's daughters—to bring this extraordinary tale of deception and harsh deprivation to life.

What implications does the GDA approach have for federal-provincial relations? How does it relate to the constitutional division of responsibility? What advantages and drawbacks does it hold for Canada's political system? More generally, what can we conclude about the GDA approach?

Since 1960, Canadian industry has lagged behind other advanced capitalist economies in its level of commitment to research and development. Asleep at the Switch explains the reasons for this underperformance, despite a series of federal measures to spur technological innovation in Canada. Bruce Smardon argues that the underlying issue in Canada's longstanding failure to innovate is structural, and can be traced to the rapid diffusion of American Fordist practices into the manufacturing sector of the early twentieth century. Under the influence of Fordism, Canadian industry came to depend heavily on outside sources of new technology, particularly from the United States. Though this initially brought in substantial foreign capital and led to rapid economic development, the resulting branch-plant industrial structure led to the prioritization of business interests over transformative and innovative industrial strategies. This situation was exacerbated in the early 1960s by the Glassco framework, which assumed that the best way for the federal state to foster domestic technological capacity was to fund private sector research and collaborative strategies with private capital. Remarkably, and with few results, federal programs and measures continued to emphasize a market-oriented approach. Asleep at the Switch details the ongoing attempts by the federal government to increase the level of innovation in Canadian industry, but shows why these efforts have failed to alter the pattern of technological dependency.

Savoie considers the war of reform waged by the leaders of these major industrial countries. Reagan declared that he had come to Washington to “drain the swamp” of bureaucracy, and set up the Grace Commission to investigate the operation of the U.S. government. Thatcher and Mulroney were equally committed to reform and initiated wide-ranging changes. By the end of the 1990s, the changes were dramatic. Many governments operations had been privatized in all three countries, and new management techniques had been introduced. In Great Britain, one observer judged that the changes were historically as important as the collapse of Keynesian economics.

Is government now better in these countries, and was political leadership right in focusing on management of the bureaucracy as the villain? Savoie suggests that the reforms overlooked problems now urgently requiring attention and, at the same time, attempted to address non-existent problems. He combines theory and research based on sixty-two interviews, nearly all with members of the executive branch of the governments of Britain, Canada and the United States.

Canadian Parties in Transition examines the transformation of party politics in Canada and the possible shape the party system might take in the near future. With chapters written by an outstanding team of political scientists, the book presents a multi-faceted image of party dynamics, electoral behaviour, political marketing, and representative democracy.

The fourth edition has been thoroughly updated and includes fifteen new chapters and several new contributors. The new material covers topics such as the return to power of the Liberal Party, voting politics in Quebec, women in Canadian political parties, political campaigning, digital party politics, and municipal party politics.

Frederick Gardiner's public life was rich and long, from his initiation into politics as a Toronto schoolboy before the First World War, through his involvement with the Ontario Conservative party and suburban politics in the 1930s and 1940s, on through his years as first chairman of Metropolitan Toronto (1953-61), to the relinquishing of his last public office in 1979.

This is a readable and perceptive biography of the exuberant and powerful politician who captured the public imagination of Toronto and created a legend around himself during his lifetime.

The book focuses mainly on Gardiner's experience as founding boss of Metropolitan Toronto. This first metropolitan government in North America was in many ways his personal machine. Gardiner made an indispensable contribution to its effectiveness and to its very survival. He presided over an unprecedented boom in urban development and construction. His public works projects included the first urban expressway in Canada (the Gardiner Expressway).

Gardiner's political nickname, 'Big Daddy,' fits him well. He revelled in his reputation as a political bulldozer, and was often described as the Canadian equivalent of Robert Moses, the famous and feared coordinator of construction for New York City. Gardiner was a man for the times, an unusual person whose character seemed to match the requirements of a city bursting at its seams. His lack of interest in public participation generated great controversy and left a lasting impression on Toronto's metropolitan government.

Readers concerned with politics and urban government will learn much from Gardiner's experiences and conduct as he wrestled with his political surroundings and with urban policy problems such as planning, housing, and transportation. And this portrait of a dynamic and aggressive man who symbolized the Toronto on a generation ago will appeal to those who remember these years.

Electronic Format Disclaimer: Photo section removed after page 150 at the request of the rights holder.

In Governance in the Twenty-first Century Canadian and international experts recognize both the difficulty of making predictions and the need to consider the future in order to prepare the public sector for new challenges. The authors' predictions and recommendations are anchored in a thorough understanding of contemporary public administration. They point out that not only have previous reforms made yet more change necessary and inevitable but that the purpose of these reforms is to attempt to return government to the position of respect and competence it enjoyed in the past.

Every year, over 1.3 million people apply to visit, work, or settle in Canada. It falls to visa officers to determine who gets in – and who stays out. In the face of this enormous responsibility, how do these gatekeepers use their discretionary authority to assess eligibility, credibility, and risk?

Seeking answers to this question, Vic Satzewich conducted interviews with 128 visa officers, locally engaged staff, and immigration program managers at eleven overseas offices. He reveals how the organizational context within which they work shapes their decision making. When something in an application does not “add up” – somber photographs from a supposed wedding celebration, for example – an officer conducts follow-up interviews with the applicant.

In a world where no two visa applications are the same, and in the context of complex and shifting population movements and pressures, this is a fascinating look at how visa officers do their work.

The ideological foundations of the contributors range from personalized neo-Marxism, through "extreme centre" neo-Keynesianism, to hard-line neoclassical mathematical economics. Despite this diversity there is a surprising degree of consensus. No contributor advocates centralized planning and none expects a free market to cure all economic ills. Opinions vary as to how well the market actually works, but all agree that equity and efficiency are essential goals which most consider to be complementary rather than mutually exclusive. In the concluding chapter it is suggested that current economic problems are caused not so much by government intervention as by the nature of that intervention. The authors believe that the recent ideological convergence may lead to a new paradigm, a theory of the optimal blend of market and management that will be flexible enough to deal with the varying conditions of diverse societies, thus simplifying the task of creating a smooth-running global economy.

Originally published in 1988. Leading international researchers in regional economic development have contributed an integrated set of chapters reviewing the whole field and taking stock of current thinking. The book is in honour of François Perroux, the father of regional development theory, whose contributions to two important concepts in economics – time and space – have been substantial. The book comprises five parts. Part one covers Perroux's work in general and on growth poles in particular. Part two deals with 'the politics of place', population and regional development, techniques for regional policy analysis and a neoclassical approach to regional economics. In part three the Canadian scene is reviewed at national and regional levels. In part four chapters on urban development, small and medium-size cities, and capital grants deal with the experiences of other countries. Part five concludes the book with a chapter on growth poles, optimal size of cities, and regional disparities and government intervention.

The authoritative biography of Stephen Harper, to be published on the eve of the next election.

As one of the important prime ministers in the life of our nation, Stephen Harper has reshaped Canada into a more conservative country, a transformation that his opponents tacitly admit will never be reversed. He has made government smaller, justice tougher, and provinces more independent, whether they want to be or not. Under its 22nd prime minister, Canada shows the world a plainer, harder face. Those who praise Harper point to the Conservatives' skillful economic management, the impressive new trade agreements, the tax cuts and the balanced budget, the reformed immigration system, the uncompromising defence of Israel and Ukraine, and the fight against terrorism. Critics--pointing to punitive punishments, muzzled scientists, assaults on the judiciary, and contempt for parliament--accuse the Harper government of being autocratic, secretive and cruel. But what about the man? In this definitive new biography, the Globe and Mail's John Ibbitson explores the life of the most important Canadian of our times--his suburban youth, the crisis that caused Stephen Harper to quit university for three years, the forces that shaped his tempestuous relationship with Reform Leader Preston Manning, how Laureen Harper influences her husband, his devotion to his children--and his cats. Ibbitson explains how this shy, closed, introverted loner united a fractured conservative movement, defeated a Liberal hegemony, and set out to reshape the nation. With unparalleled access to sources, years of research and writing, and a depth of insight that has made him one of the most respected voices in journalism, John Ibbitson presents an intimate, detailed portrait of a man who has remained an enigma to supporters and enemies alike. Now that enigma is revealed, in a masterful exploration of Stephen Harper, the politician and the man.

Distinguished scholars from six countries investigate the effects of reforms in a number of areas, including budgeting, personnel management, and accountability. While reforms have been beneficial in some of these areas, success has been far from universal. By comparing and contrasting measures in Canada, the United States, Britain, Australia, New Zealand, and Europe, contributors isolate and evaluate factors - such as individual political leaders and the complexity of government - that influence the success or failure of reforms.

The definitive portrait of Stephen Harper in power by this country’s most trenchant, influential and surprising political commentator.

Oh, he won, but he won’t last. Oh, he may win again but he won’t get a majority. Oh, his trick bag is emptying fast, the ads are backfiring, the people are onto him, and soon his own party will turn on him. And let me tell you, it couldn’t happen to a nicer guy . . .

Despite a constant barrage of outrage and disbelief from his detractors, Stephen Harper is on his way to becoming one of Canada’s most significant prime ministers. He has already been in power longer than Lester B. Pearson and John Diefenbaker. By 2015, and the end of this majority term, he’ll have caught up to Brian Mulroney. No matter the ups and downs, the triumphs and the self-inflicted wounds, Harper has been moving to build the Canada he wants—the Canada a significant proportion of Canadian voters want or they wouldn’t have elected him three times. As Wells writes, “He could not win elections without widespread support in the land. . . . Which suggests that Harper has what every successful federal leader has needed to survive over a long stretch of time: a superior understanding of Canada.”

In The Longer I’m Prime Minister, Paul Wells explores just what Harper’s understanding of Canada is, and who he speaks for in the national conversation. He explains Harper not only to Harper supporters but also to readers who can’t believe he is still Canada’s prime minister. In this authoritative, engaging and sometimes deeply critical account of the man, Paul Wells also brings us an illuminating portrait of Canadian democracy: “glorious, a little dented, and free.”

Throughout the world today former nationstates, as disparate as Yugoslavia, Somalia, and Canada, have either disintegrated or threaten to splinter into regions. The conflicts are economic, social, ethnic, linguistic, religious, political, and cultural. Higgins and Savoie analyze the reasons for these conflicts and show why attempts to eliminate regional disparities within nations have been largely unsuccessful.

He has been called the strongest Opposition leader in the television era; he was also known in Québec as the provincial Opposition’s “pit bull.” Here, in his own words, and for the first time, is the inside story of Tom Mulcair’s rise from modest, middle-class beginnings to the threshold of power. Discover the man behind the headlines: who he is, how he thinks, and how he comes by the values that shaped his character. Unwavering in his convictions, he shares behind-the-scenes information on the reasons why he resigned as Québec’s minister of the environment under Charest; his decision to rejoin the New Democratic Party; and what it was like working closely with Jack Layton to help spearhead the “Orange Wave” that swept the NDP into power as the Official Opposition in the 2011 federal election. Alongside this, Mulcair also sheds light on such nation-defining events as past immigration and environmental policies, the Québec Referendum, Native residential schools and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and the Harper government’s Anti-Terrorism Act.

In this book, Mulcair reveals his vision for the country, and his position on the issues that matter most — making Strength of Conviction an essential read for all Canadians with an interest in our nation’s future.

Harper's team fought four campaigns in five years: two leadership races and two national elections. Through trial and error - and determination - they learned to combine the Reform Party's strength in grassroots politics with the Progressive Conservative expertise in advertising and media relations, while simultaneously adopting the latest advances in information and communications technology.

This e-book has forty cyber war operations emails created for the covert digital guerrilla cyber warfare strategy operations in the Middle East. The e-book takes the reader from the time of full blow killings on the battlefield toward the peace truce operations currently being negotiated in the Middle East today. The e-book is packed with many online pictures and newspaper articles and video links to help the reader better understand the covert digital cyber warfare operations, flavored with the authors' special brand of war poetry poems. The e-book operations are a detail report about a civilian "covert -spy," that decided to go to war in the Middle East using cyber warfare on his own, after he is not accepted by the Canadian military due to a psychological medical condition and his age. The civilian is fed up with watching the "war on terrorism" played on television, seeing the soldiers and the innocent woman and children in the Middle East being crippled and killed, through mass bombing campaigns or suicide bombings or road side bombs. The covert civilian spy believes he can save the civilians and soldiers from dying or being crippled, if he uses the internet to seamlessly enter the Middle East battlefields and creates a new war strategy. The spy creates a new war strategy, and implants the psychology into the minds of the people involved on the battlefield, and in doings so; help bring an end to the war on terrorism as we know it today. The self-funded knock spy is a bit of a homegrown psychologist and scientist mixed into one, with an uncanny ability to craft battlefield psychology strategy operations. After one year of planning and preparing digital books and tools for his operations, the civilian spy spent 8 month documenting his operations while risking his life and going to war zones in the Middle East launching cyber-attacks online shaping the end to the war on terrorism. No matter where you go," Perry says, "you can always hear 'echoes of the war on terrorism, ' even silent echoes." Against this background, Perry develops his cyber covert digital psychology war operations filled with new peace empowerment war strategy wielding empowerment mixed with logic. He releases the operations online into the battlefield as fast as terrorism and war is published in media online reported in the Middle East region of the world. As he attempted to deal with the ravages of war seamlessly, and the threat posed to the civilian way of life, the final war on terror is shaped in the age of psychology economic empowerment reasoning. Through the implementation of these "covert psychology war strategy empowerment operations," war strategies and operations by the terrorism networks and NATO military are redefined and implemented on the battlefield. The reshaping of the war on terrorism objectives in the mind of leaders on both sides of the battlefield are his target. By implementing his fresh strategy of peace empowerment war psychology logic, "peace plus prosperity equals power" posted on an "Aljazeera blog" in Palestine, Perry helps to create the shift of the war on terrorism in the Middle East. He created the fresh war psychology strategy through the internet seamlessly so no physical contact with any terrorism organization or military general has ever occurred with himself or Aljazeera in Palestine. However people in Hamas, Hezbollah, Al-Qaeda or the Taliban or ISI in Pakistan or the spy agencies in Canada and the USA and British and Israel governments may have been emailed, or read the information posted on the "Aljazeera blog" in the internet. The objective of this e-book is to try and stop the war on terrorism by convincing the terrorism networks and generals on the battlefield to stop killing...without communicating directly with any terror

Jane Jacobs, writing from her adoptive country, uses the problems facing an independence-seeking Quebec and Canada as a whole to examine the universal problem of sovereignty and autonomy that nations great and small have struggled with throughout history. Using Norway’s relatively peaceful divorce from Sweden as an example, Jacobs contends that Canada and Canadians—Quebecois and Anglophones alike—can learn important lessons from similar sovereignty questions of the past.

A passionate argument for Canada's reassertion of its place on the world stage, from a former prime minister and one of Canada's most respected political figures.

In the world that is taking shape, the unique combination of Canada's success at home as a diverse society and its reputation internationally as a sympathetic and respected partner consititute national assets that are at least as valuable as its natural resource wealth. As the world becomes more competitive and complex, and the chances of deadly conflict grow, the example and the initiative of Canada can become more important than they have ever been. That depends on its people: assets have no value if Canadians don't recognize or use them, or worse, if they waste them.

A more effective Canada is not only a benefit to itself, but to its friends and neighbours. And in this compelling examination of what it as a nation has been, what it has become and what it can yet be to the world, Joe Clark takes the reader beyond formal foreign policy and looks at the contributions and leadership offered by Canada's most successful individuals and organizations who are already putting these uniquely Canadian assets to work internationally.

Following widespread news that Toronto Police are in possession of the alleged Rob Ford crack cocaine video, there has never been a better time to read the essential backgrounder to Rob Ford's increasingly wild and erratic mayoralty.

When people talk about recalling politicians, it's usually because the politician delivered something other than what they advertised, and the voters voted for--lies, frauds and infidelities. Toronto Mayor Rob Ford, however, is exactly what the voters endorsed. They elected him with full knowledge of his obstreperous history as a city councillor, his inability to play well with others, his one-track mind and one-track message. His opponents warned voters that his platform was mostly wishful thinking. But Torontonians voted for him anyway.

The story of Rob Ford is the story of what happens when voters--the supreme authority--throw a wrench into the gears of democracy and elect someone who can't govern, and manifestly never could. Ford's mayoralty has forced Toronto to reconsider questions that seemed settled long, long ago. What kind of city chose this man to take the helm? Where does a mayor derive his mandate--from the voters, the polls, or talk radio? Does it matter if a man is a national embarrassment if he's popular at home?

Unwittingly, Ford has made possible a resurgence of the urban values that unite conservatives and liberals alike, galvanizing citizens in a way the city hasn't seen in some time. This is The Gift of Ford.

A breathtaking behind-the-scenes look at the dramatic rise and fall of Christy Clark’s BC Liberals, the return to power of the NDP, and what it means for British Columbia’s volatile political climate going forward.

British Columbia’s political arena has always been the site of dramatic rises and falls, infighting, scandal, and come-from-behind victories. However, no one was prepared for the historic events of spring 2017, when the Liberal government of Christy Clark, one of the most polarizing premiers in recent history, was toppled.

A Matter of Confidence gives readers an insider’s look at the overconfidence that fuelled the rise and fall of Clark’s premiership and the historic non-confidence vote that defeated her government and ended her political career. Beginning with this pivotal moment, the book goes back and chronicles the downfall of Clark’s predecessor, Gordon Campbell, which led to her unlikely victory in 2013, and traces the events leading up to her defeat at the hands of her NDP and Green opponents. Told by reporters Richard Zussman and Rob Shaw, who covered every moment of the election cycle, and illustrated by candid and extensive interviews with political insiders from both sides of the aisle—including Christy Clark and John Horgan—this book is a must read for anyone who cares about BC politics and the future of the province.

During his tumultuous term as mayor of Toronto, Rob Ford always stayed on message—saving taxpayers money and putting the brakes on the “gravy train” at city hall. He also returned every phone call, even showing up on people’s doorsteps late at night to help them with their problems. But despite his hard work to cut excessive spending and to address the city’s crumbling infrastructure, the media delighted in showcasing Ford’s most personal struggles instead. Reporters followed him to his car, onto his front lawn, and trailed behind while he trick-or-treated with his children. The city, the country, the entire world watched Rob Ford battle substance abuse, but they rarely saw or heard the real story behind Ford—the family man, the faithful public servant, the devoted husband, father, and brother who put the people of his city above all else.

In Ford Nation, Doug Ford, Rob’s brother and most trusted advisor, shares the true story of the two brothers and the Ford family: from the early days of their parents’ marriage, as Diane and Doug Sr worked tirelessly to get their company, Deco Labels and Tags, off the ground; to the Etobicoke house filled with the Ford children; to Doug Sr’s entry into provincial politics, with Rob and Doug following in his footsteps, to city hall. Ford Nation recounts the triumphs and strug-gles of Rob and Doug in their own voices—as well as the voices of their mother, Diane, nephew Michael, Rob’s widow, Renata, and daughter, Stephanie—from knocking on doors as new candidates to knocking out opponents in council chamber debates.

When Rob was forced to end his campaign to remain mayor of Toronto, Doug didn’t hesitate to jump into the race, and despite his very late start he almost pulled off an upset. Doug shares what life was like for the family during this difficult time, and what it was like in the final hour of Rob’s life, when he succumbed to cancer and became, in his daughter Stephanie’s words, “the mayor of heaven.”

Drawing on a number of sources to share Rob’s life in his own words after he became too ill to continue working on the book, Ford Nation is the only book that accurately captures the entire account of Rob and Doug Ford and their fight to protect the rights of the little guy.

A concise, elegant survey of a complex aspect of Canadian history, A Short History of the State in Canada examines the theory and reality of governance within Canada’s distinctive political heritage: a combination of Indigenous, French, and British traditions, American statism and anti-statism, and diverse, practical experiments and experiences.

E.A. Heaman takes the reader through the development of the state in both principle and practice, examining Indigenous forms of government before European contact; the interplay of French and British colonial institutions before and after the Conquest of New France; the creation of the nineteenth-century liberal state; and, finally, the rise and reconstitution of the modern social welfare state. Moving beyond the history of institutions to include the development of political cultures and social politics, A Short History of the State in Canada is a valuable introduction to the topic for political scientists, historians, and anyone interested in Canada’s past and present.

Prevailing stories about law and religion place great faith in the capacity of legal multiculturalism, rights-based toleration, and conceptions of the secular to manage issues raised by religious difference. Yet the relationship between law and religion consistently proves more fraught than such accounts suggest. In Law’s Religion, Benjamin L. Berger knocks law from its perch above culture, arguing that liberal constitutionalism is an aspect of, not an answer to, the challenges of cultural pluralism. Berger urges an approach to the study of law and religion that focuses on the experience of law as a potent cultural force.

Based on a close reading of Canadian jurisprudence, but relevant to all liberal legal orders, this book explores the nature and limits of legal tolerance and shows how constitutional law’s understanding of religion shapes religious freedom. Rather than calling for legal reform, Law’s Religion invites us to rethink the ethics, virtues, and practices of adjudication in matters of religious difference.

The Liberal Party of Canada is one of the most successful parties in the democratic world. It dominated Canadian politics for a century, practising an inclusive style of “big tent” politics that allowed it to fend off opponents on both the left and right. How did it do this? What kind of party organization did it build over the decades to manage its remarkable string of election victories?

This book traces the record of the party over the twentieth century, revealing the cyclical character of its success and charting its capacity to respond to change. It also unwraps Liberal practices and organization to reveal the party’s distinctive “brokerage” approach to politics as well as a franchise-style structure that tied local grassroots supporters to the national leadership.

R. Kenneth Carty provides a masterful analysis of how one party came to lead the nation’s public life. In a country riven by difference, the Liberals’ enduring political success was an extraordinary feat. But as Carty reflects, given the party’s recent travails, can it reinvent itself for the twenty-first century?

Situated between two different constitutional traditions, those of the United Kingdom and the United States, Canada has maintained a distinctive third way: federal, parliamentary, and flexible. Yet in recent years it seems that Canadian constitutional culture has been moving increasingly in an American direction. Through the prorogation crises of 2008 and 2009, its senate reform proposals, and the appointment process for Supreme Court judges, Stephen Harper’s Conservative government has repeatedly shown a tendency to push Canada further into the US constitutional orbit.

Red, White, and Kind of Blue? is a comparative legal analysis of this creeping Americanization, as well as a probing examination of the costs and benefits that come with it. Comparing British, Canadian, and American constitutional traditions, David Schneiderman offers a critical perspective on the Americanization of Canadian constitutional practice and a timely warning about its unexamined consequences.

The violent attacks on journalists at Charlie Hebdo and shoppers in a Jewish supermarket in Paris in January 2015 left seventeen dead and shocked the world. In the aftermath, the public struggles with unsettling questions: What is the cost of free expression? Do the world’s major cities embrace multiculturalism? Is the broad range of proposed new security measures too intrusive?

After the Paris Attacks brings together leading scholars and journalists to respond to this tragedy and to debate how we can reach a safer and saner future. In this timely book, experts from fields such as law, political science, and philosophy grapple with the vital challenges of balancing security, justice, and tolerance, and offer astute and penetrating insights into how the world can best respond to these challenges.

It is no longer sufficient to examine discrete nation-states in isolation from each other. In Politics in North America: Redefining Continental Relations, prominent authors from Canada, the United States, and Mexico explore the politics of redefining the institutional, economic, geographic, and cultural boundaries of North America. The contributors argue that the study of politics in the twenty-first century requires simultaneous attention to all levels (local, national, and international) as well as, increasingly, to continents. This argument is explored through the historical and contemporary social and political forces that have created competing visions of what it means to belong to a North American political community. In this process, new debates emerge in the book concerning the appropriate role for the state, as well as the meaning of sovereignty, democracy, and rights.

What makes Canada a different kind of society from the United States? In this book-length essay, Philip Resnick argues that, in more ways than one, Canada has been profoundly marked by its European origins. This is most apparent where the European historical underpinnings both of English-speaking and French-speaking Canada are concerned, but it is no less true when one examines Canada's multiple national identities, robust social programs, increasingly secular values and multilateral outlook on international affairs today. As the war in Iraq brought home, and the 2004 federal election reinforced, Canada is a more European-type society than is our neighbour to the south.

This does not come without its own complexities or problems. On the contrary, there are significant parallels between the ambiguous versions of national identity that one finds in Canada and what one finds on the European continent. There are parallels, too, between the elements of self-doubt that characterize Canadians overall when they think about their country and those of Europeans caught up in their own, often fractious, attempts to forge a more integrated Europe. The author argues that Canada needs Europe as an effective counter-weight to the influence of the United States. He further argues that, at a deeper existential level, Canadians need relevant European references to better understand what makes them the kind of North Americans that they are.

The Game Planners studies the policy-making process in six Canadian national sports organizations, each of which deals with a different high-profile Olympic event. The authors argue that the creation of a "high-performance" sport system in Canada is due to pressure from three areas: the Canadian government, the physical education profession, and the sports community.

In the unique style that has endeared him to one of Canada's largest and most loyal radio audiences, best-selling author Lowell Green launches an all-out expose on those Canadians he says are wrecking our country. He tackles issues ranging from our dangerous refugee, immigration and multicultural policies to the soft-on-crime-gang with their needle and crack-pipe handouts, the Kyoto Accord, Canada's homeless "industry," and much more. WARNING: This book is not for the faint of heart; some of the revelations here are shocking. This is a wake-up call for Canadians, by the country's most experienced broadcaster, a man with his finger on the pulse of the country he loves. Buckle up!

Writing from the perspective of a student of life, history, law, politics, and theology, Don Hutchinson draws on all of these areas in Under Siege to offer perceptive insight into the Christian Church of today’s Canada. The reader will receive the benefit of his thirty years of church leadership, Christian witness, constitutional law, and public policy experience to gain a practical understanding of how we, the Church, may cast the deciding votes on the future of Christianity in our constitutionally guaranteed “free and democratic society.”

How did we get here? What happened to “Christian” Canada? Do we not have Charter rights like everyone else? What does the Bible say?

Many Christians sense that an advancing secularism is trying to force upon Canadians a culture in which faith is meant to be private. Hutchinson presents historic, legal, and theological grounds for us not to hide our faith in stained-glass closets, but instead to enter Canada’s contested public space with confidence. Together as individual Christians, congregations, denominations, and para-congregational ministries, we are the Church in Canada. And together we have the capacity to impact the nation for God’s good, the good of our neighbours, and the good of ourselves. Will we?

When legal experts finally saw the terms of the investment deal Canada had signed with China, they could hardly believe what their eyes. The deal was unprecedented -- Canada had never given so much away to a trading partner. But Ottawa did not allow a full public review, and ultimately ratified the deal in 2014 with no changes. And the government moved forward with other trade deals that contain many of the same flaws.

In this book, investment treaty expert Gus Van Harten offers the first-ever independent take on the details of the China-Canada investment deal and what it means for Canadians. Many of the deal's provisions are so extreme that readers may find it almost impossible to believe that the Canadian government agreed to them.

He explains how this agreement, and others like it, give multinational corporations and rich investors superpowers over governments. Secretive courts staffed by private lawyers, not judges, are able to order governments to pay these investors billions for policies and decisions they object to.

In simple language and easy to follow analysis, Van Harten offers a window into this secretive and obscure world. He documents the many ways Canadians lose out in the China-Canada deal, and how taxpayers may find themselves footing the bill for billions of dollars to Chinese investors who object to the actions of democratically-elected municipal, provincial and federal governments.

This deal -- in place for a minimum 15 years -- includes terms that may well turn up in other trade and investment agreements. Gus Van Harten offers practical steps for a better, more informed public debate on this vital topic.

Canada has had twenty-three prime ministers, all with views and policies that have differed as widely as the ages in which they lived. But what were they like as people? Being Prime Minister takes you behind the scenes to tell the story of Canada’s leaders and the job they do as it has never been told before.

From John A. Macdonald to Justin Trudeau, readers get a glimpse of the prime ministers as they travelled, dealt with invasions of privacy, met with celebrities, and managed the stress of the nation’s top job. Humorous and hard working, vain and vulnerable, Canada leaders are revealed as they truly were.

Finally, after over 30 years of hagiographies, comes a book that sets the record straight and tells us the truth about Pierre Elliott Trudeau. In this unprecedented and meticulously researched sweep of the record, Globe and Mail bestselling author Bob Plamondon challenges the conventional wisdom that Trudeau was a great prime minister. With new revelations, fresh insights, and in-depth analysis, Plamondon reveals that the man did not measure up to the myth. While no one disputes Trudeau's intelligence, toughness, charisma, and the flashes of glamour he brought Canada, in the end the pirouettes were not worth the price.

A unique insider's account of the Harper government so damning that it cannot be ignored In March 2008, Kevin Page was appointed by the federal Conservatives to be the country's first Parliamentary Budget Officer. The move fulfilled a Tory campaign promise to deliver greater government transparency and accountability. He was later denounced by the same people who appointed him to scrutinize their spending. When he challenged the government on several issues--most notably about the true costs of the F-35 fighter planes--and publicly claimed the government was misleading Canadians, Page was vilified. He was called "unbelievable, unreliable and incredible" by then-Finance Minister Jim Flaherty. Page's term was not extended and he retired from the civil service. Page's assessment of the F-35 procurement was proven right, a major embarrassment to the Harper government. But Page's overriding concern is that Parliament does not get the information and analysis it needs to hold the executive (the prime minister and cabinet) to account. Parliament, he argues, is broken, with power centralized in the PMO. The civil service appears cowed, and members of parliament almost never see enough financial analysis to support the policy decisions they make. That was true at various times on the tough-on-crime legislation, new military procurement as well as changes to the Canada Health Transfer and Old Age Security. In this shocking insider's account, Page argues that democracy is being undermined by an increasingly autocratic government that does not respect facts that run counter to its political agenda. Elected officials need accurate, independently verified data to support the implementation of policies and programs. In Unaccountable, Page tells all Canadians why we should be concerned.

In 1908, after decades of struggling with a public administration undermined by systemic patronage, the Canadian parliament decided that public servants would be selected on the basis of merit, through a system administered by an independent agency: the Public Service Commission of Canada. This history, celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Commission, recounts its unique contribution to the development of an independent public service, which has become a pillar of Canadian parliamentary democracy.

The health care system in Canada is much-discussed in the international sphere, but often overlooked when it comes to its highly decentralized administration and regulation. Health Systems in Transition: Canada provides an objective description and analysis of the public, private, and mixed components that make up health care in Canada today including the federal, provincial, intergovernmental and regional dynamics within the public system. Gregory P. Marchildon’s study offers a statistical and visual description of the many facets of Canadian health care financing, administration, and service delivery, along with relevant comparisons to five other countries’ systems.

This second edition includes a major update on health data and institutions, a new appendix of federal laws concerning select provincial and territorial Medicare legislation, and, for the first time, a comprehensive and searchable index. It also provides a more complete assessment of the Canadian health system based on financial protection, efficiency, equity, user experience, quality of care, and health outcomes.

Balancing careful assessment, summary, and illustration, Health Systems in Transition: Canada is a thorough and illuminating look at one of the nation's most complex public policies and associated institutions.

Tracing Diefenbaker's deliberations over nuclear policy, McMahon shows that Diefenbaker was politically cautious, not indecisive - he wanted to acquire nuclear weapons and understood from public opinion polls that most Canadians supported this position. However, Diefenbaker worried that the growing anti-nuclear movement might sway public opinion sufficiently to undermine his political support. He also feared that Liberal leader Lester Pearson could use the issue for political advantage. As long as Pearson opposed Canada's membership in the nuclear club, he could portray Diefenbaker's government as an irresponsible proponent of nuclear proliferation. Despite these reservations, Diefenbaker was involved in nuclear negotiations with the Americans throughout his tenure as prime minister, and an agreement was within reach on a number of occasions. When, in January 1963, Pearson reversed his position, Diefenbaker felt trapped - in making a clear public statement in favour of nuclear weapons it would appear as though he was merely following his opponent's lead. When Canada acquired nuclear weapons in 1963, it was under the leadership of Pearson, not Diefenbaker.